“In The Wall Street Journal, Randy Barnett writes that thanks to five Justices, the right to keep and bear arms is now protected from state interference. And thanks to Clarence Thomas, an important clause in the Constitution has risen from the grave.”

“The story of Alcoholics Anonymous teaches us about human nature and the kinds of social programs that do and don’t work.”

Congressional Budget Office – Distribution of Federal Taxes

www.cbo.gov

“The federal tax system is progressive–that is, average tax rates generally rise with income. Households in the bottom fifth of the income distribution (with average income of $18,400, under a broad definition of income) paid 4.0 percent of their income in federal taxes. The middle quintile, with average income of $64,500, paid 14.3 percent of that income in taxes, and the highest quintile, with average income of $264,700, paid 25.1 percent.”

“In these hard economic times, when ordinary people are struggling to make ends meet, there is a nagging sense that universities are luxuries. In fact, universities may be the most consistently high-performing products of long-term capital investment.”

“In The Wall Street Journal, Russell Roberts of George Mason University comments on the revival of interest in the Nobel Prize winning economist Friedrich Hayek.”

How Christianity Created Capitalism

www.torenewamerica.com

“It was the church more than any other agency, writes historian Randall Collins, that put in place what Weber called the preconditions of capitalism: the rule of law and a bureaucracy for resolving disputes rationally; a specialized and mobile labor force; the institutional permanence that allows for transgenerational investment and sustained intellectual and physical efforts, together with the accumulation of long-term capital; and a zest for discovery, enterprise, wealth creation, and new undertakings.”

This article provides an interesting case study which clearly illustrates various dysfunctional aspects of trade protectionism in the real world; in particular, how tariffs shield US companies from having to compete and innovate in terms of the goods and services that they produce and the business models that they employ.